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‘Tuff’ and tasty late-night fishing outing
The Nature Call: The goal was catfish, but buffalo fish was good enough
You can’t argue with seconds. But what about going back for the leftover fried fish a day later and straight from the fridge?
Must be good. It was.
Two teachers walk into a bar. Err, two teachers walk onto a sandbar, for catfish. It was ripened summer and we were due to take a turn at the barons of the benthic zone.
Our walk to the remnants of the dam at Palisades State Park was pleasant. The bugs were few, other people even less so, and there was less and less light by the minute. Two guys with two chairs, both with two rigged rods.
While catfish were the goal, we’d been happy with just about any bite. Joe rigged up with chicken livers, I used shrimp.
The stars appeared with the bats, the hulking walls of the palisades surrendered to the dark. Water tore over the rock pile. We fished. I heard tales about hidden caves and youthful high jinks.
Joe pulled in another naked hook. He chased after dips of his pole several times only to reel in a quickly limp line. Fish thievery.
I had a couple misses too. But just enough action that kept me from lulling off in a blissful stupor during a summer idyll.
Fish on. This one meant it but it didn’t fight with the pugnaciousness of a muscular catfish. I slid the golden trophy into Joe’s net by headlamp — a buffalo fish.
The buffalo fish is special. Did you know they can live more than a century? Alec Lackmann’s groundbreaking research in 2019 on specimens in western Minnesota shattered the conventional wisdom that buffalo fish lived about 30 years.
He studied ear bones to get precise ages. Many of his samples were 80 to 90 years old; one fish was 112 years old. A fish doesn’t just survive to 112, it must live through adversity, it must thrive even when the conditions are stacked against it.
What luck, I didn’t want to go home empty-handed and I was eager to put this fish to the fork. Dispatched, it waited on the sandbar and we continued our nocturnal pursuit.
Walleyes get the glory when it comes to filets. I’ll put buffalo fish against them any day. Buffalo fish were a valued food source.
After settlement, buffalo fish were part of the commercial market. For example, the former commercial fishery on the Illinois River had Buffalo as a key export. In 1890 fishermen netted 3.3 million pounds of buffalo for eastern markets. Pollution and competition from invasives like the common carp eroded many commercially viable stocks.
Fish on. And this time for Joe it wasn’t a miss. The bend in his rod suggested he’d finally connected with our target species. In a commotion of headlamps and multiple lines in the water, he got the critter to the bank for the second it took to discern it was a soft shelled turtle. Thankfully it loosed the hook before we, I mean Joe, had to wrestle it.
The buffalo suffers from mistaken identity. At a glance, you could confuse them for the dreaded common carp. As a planktivore, buffalo are seldom caught by hook.
As such, they didn’t earn the label “gamefish” like bass or pike. Instead, they were lumped into the category of “rough fish” for which rules were few and far between. But our native non-game fish like redhorse or gar deserve their own category. To throw them in with the likes of snakehead or silver carp is wrong.
The buffalo fish is to carp as Mary Decker is to Zola Budd.
We took the moment to congratulate ourselves on a prosperous evening and then collected our kit. The walk out was a chore owing to the dark and uneven surfaces no longer naturally lit.
My prize spent the night on ice. With minimal cursing I carved generous slabs of white meat from the 22 inch carcass. A little breading, some hot oil, and soon I was stuffed with fish to spare.
We can elevate fish like the buffalo with a new moniker. From now on I’m calling them “Tuff” fish: admirable native survivors. The kind of fish that may not win a popularity contest but for sure your respect.
I went back for cold leftovers of the buffalo fish, there was no disappointment. Next time I’m lucky enough to hook that Tuff fish, I owe Joe a dinner.
Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.
John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D., of Marion, teaches U.S. history with an emphasis on environmental issues at Linn-Mar High School and is past president of the Linn County Conservation Board.
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